Your Rating

Overall

Film Details

MovieMail's Review

Intricate and captivating silhouette films.

Lotte Reiniger has the distinction of creating the very first feature animation, her enthralling The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), an epic silhouette film featuring highly ornate shapes of exotic lands, gallant heroes, nefarious magic, and a rousing climax with a multi-headed beast. A German leftist in the age of fascism, after the war she moved to England, where she continued to build a visionary oeuvre totalling over fifty films, mostly shorts, many of them for BBC Children’s TV. She made her last film, The Rose and the Ring (1979), at the age of 80. In addition to their craft and charm, her films have two outstanding features: they are highly intricate, yet also opaque, inviting viewers to fill in details with their own imagination, thus creating a captivating aesthetic as commanding today as ever.

on 1st November 2008Author of 32 reviews

Film Description

An exciting first volume of animated films from the pioneer of silhouette animation, Lotte Reiniger. Features Cinderella (1922), The Death Feigning Chinaman (1928), The Golden Goose (1944), Aladdin and his Magic Lamp (1954), The Frog Prince (1954), The Gallant Little Tailor (1954), Sleeping Beauty (1954), Snow White and Rose Red (1954), Cinderella (1954), Puss in Boots (1954), The Magic Horse (1954), The Grasshopper and the Ant (1954), The Three Wishes (1954), Thumbelina (1954), The Caliph Stork (1954), Hansel and Gretel (1954), Jack and the Beanstalk (1955), The Little Chimney Sweep (1956) and The Frog Prince (1961).